Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

New Model X autopilot glitched and then autopilot computer crashed on way home

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I was driving home from work yesterday, had autopilot engaged, and as I was coming to a stop behind traffic, the car sort of froze.

The Autopilot sort of alarmed, flashed, and shutdown. I had to put the car in park, apply the break, and then I could put it back in drive. The autopilot was unavailable immediately after I started moving again, but came back a few minutes later.

This comes on the heels of another issue driving back from home on Sunday afternoon. In that instance I noticed the audio playback through USB was starting to crackle and POP. Then the screen of the MCU froze up. I did a two button reset and everything came back except the LTE. That did not come back until the third reset the following morning. Then on the way home from work yesterday the audio playback via USB started to crackle and POP again. Then the Autopilot glitched out for a while, forcing me to shift to park, before allowing me to go back into drive. Not cool in bumper to bumper traffic, but could have been worse. Also TelsaCam stopped working for the duration of the trip home.

When I got closer to home, the audio started to crackle again, and again the MCU was not registering any inputs. This time I did not reset it, since I was almost home. The turn signal on the dash was stuck on, but I don't know if the signal was actually on outside the car. The car's avatar did not show a signal. It finally sort of unfroze on it's own for a moment, but then a few seconds later, froze again. When I got home, I did another reset and it has been fine since.

I scheduled an appointment with a mobile service visit on Thursday afternoon to take a look. The stopping in traffic is not cool. Everything else is an annoyance that needs to be fixed, but I don't need this car to die in traffic.

Anyone else have similar experiences?
 
Yeah I had that happen to me a couple of weeks ago at a stop light... AP "crashed" and then put the car in park on it's own and gave me the impression that the car wasn't drivable but I was able to immediately put it back in D and carry on.

Jeff
 
"Possible" stupid question here: Is it possible that your USB drive has some sort of virus? Would some errant code accidentally downloaded onto a USB drive get into our Tesla and cause malfunctions?

I ask because that is what happened to my computer at work. USB drive plugged in all the time, and my iMac kept freezing up and had to reboot approx 1x/week. Someone told me to unplug the USB, and/or replace with a different USB drive. After leaving the USB stick out for a month now, the computer has improved 100%. No more glitching/locking up! :D

Just a thought.... :)
 
"Possible" stupid question here: Is it possible that your USB drive has some sort of virus? Would some errant code accidentally downloaded onto a USB drive get into our Tesla and cause malfunctions?

I ask because that is what happened to my computer at work. USB drive plugged in all the time, and my iMac kept freezing up and had to reboot approx 1x/week. Someone told me to unplug the USB, and/or replace with a different USB drive. After leaving the USB stick out for a month now, the computer has improved 100%. No more glitching/locking up! :D

Just a thought.... :)

Not a stupid question. The drive had nothing on it except a file structure. It only reads .mp3, and only writes .mp4 files. Even if the .mp3 files could contain a virus, it would have to be written with the MCU's operating system in mind. Assuming it is some Linux variant, it is not outside the realm of possibility, but HIGHLY unlikely. It would require a hell of a lot of forethought and luck for it to happen.

Sounds like your work PC issue was caused by a faulty USB drive, not a virus. While a faulty USB drive (in this case a USB dual SD/Micro SD card reader) could be a problem, it certainly should not cause the Autopilot to crash. It had also been working for weeks, so it could have been something that degraded over time. Not entirely outside the realm of possibility, but very bad that it would cause the autopilot to crash. I would think if this was a systemic problem, you would have tons of people crashing their autopilot with the hundreds of thousands of cars out there with varying types of USB memory. If this is a fault with this computer only, then this computer will definitely need to be replaced.

Hopefully re-pushing the software or something benign will correct the problem. Otherwise I fear the self drive computer may have a small fault somewhere.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Brian's ReX
I had this issue while driving home from the airport. It happened at interstate speed. It didn't put the car in park but it started beeping like crazy and then stopped working for like 5 minutes. At first i thought I it falsely put me in to AP Jail. It had only be active about 30-40 seconds and without stopping it came back 5 minutes later. I think AP Jail you have to fully stop and park. I don't know for sure as I've never tested AP jail before. Mine just started working again.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Daisame
While a faulty USB drive (in this case a USB dual SD/Micro SD card reader) could be a problem, it certainly should not cause the Autopilot to crash.
This is true in theory, as the MCU and the AP computer should be completely segregated from one another. However, a faulty device COULD cause the MCU problems, and in an MCU2 vehicle especially, where the IC is technically part of the MCU, AP COULD be configured to fail safely if the IC has problems. It is also possible there are two completely unrelated issues here, regardless of whether either involves the USB device.
 
This is true in theory, as the MCU and the AP computer should be completely segregated from one another. However, a faulty device COULD cause the MCU problems, and in an MCU2 vehicle especially, where the IC is technically part of the MCU, AP COULD be configured to fail safely if the IC has problems. It is also possible there are two completely unrelated issues here, regardless of whether either involves the USB device.

I've been on AP throughout an MCU2 reboot, and I've read of folks having an MCU freeze and reboot while on AP without being kicked out of AP, so I don't think it is programmed to fail AP for the typical MCU software failure modes
 
My thought on reading it, too.

It sounds like the Autopilot software did crash, but most folks will be using the more typical Automotive definition for crash.

Of course, it'll get more clicks this way. :-/

Yes, because I am all about the clicks.. get all that fat click money! :p

I had not considered that it would read that way. I don't know if you can change the subject of a thread or not, but will take a look.

I don't see any way to edit the subject line of the thread.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Saghost
I've been on AP throughout an MCU2 reboot, and I've read of folks having an MCU freeze and reboot while on AP without being kicked out of AP, so I don't think it is programmed to fail AP for the typical MCU software failure modes
This doesn't really surprise me since it's that way on MCU1; especially considering that if you can drive without an IC in an old vehicle, AP ought to be able to drive without one even better in a new vehicle. That having been said, while a USB device could be the MCU and media problem, the driving issues including AP crashing should be completely separate, and service should be able to see the issues in logs pretty easily.
 
I don't see any way to edit the subject line of the thread.
You can’t edit a thread title. I have requested that the Model X forum moderator change the thread title from “New Model X autopilot glitched and crashed on way home” to something more accurate, because as written it states that your Model X crashed due to an Auto Pilot problem.